Saturday, November 27, 2010

29th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs

At Atomic Insights Rod Adams writes he is surprised just how long it takes the advertiser supported media to recognize an important story. For instance, This morning, MSNBC and Bloomberg had both noticed that Westinghouse had transferred 75,000 documents relating to the design and construction of AP1000 nuclear reactor plants to China. One of those sources linked to a November 23, 2010 Financial Times report titled US group gives China details of nuclear technology.

Neither one of them linked to a June 2007 article titled China may export technology learned by building modern reactors that warned about the implications of a signed technology transfer agreement that was an integral part of Westinghouse's sale of four AP1000s in March of 2007.

U.S. missing the boat on the nuclear renaissance

Areva North America: Next Energy Blog advises readers to turn their attention to a brilliant piece published in The American Spectator’s October issue, William Tucker synthesizes one of the biggest issues surrounding the Nuclear Revival—the United States is not part of it.

Not only is the nation lagging behind on construction, training, and investments for a technology that provides huge amounts (1,000+ megawatts) of carbon-free energy, but the country has no clear outlook for when it will break out of this quagmire holding back the development of future energy security.

TVA could buy a six pack of nuclear power

While work on big reactors is lagging, at CoolHandNuke the story is that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) could be the first customer for B&W's 125 MW small modular reactors (SMRs) – six of them. At an estimated $4,000/Kw, the purchase price would be $500 million each or a total of $3 billion for all six. TVA will evaluate the SMRs for its Clinch River site in Tennessee. If TVA decides to go forward, the first two units could be delivered by 2020. _Carnival29

The Chinese engineering efforts to improve reactor size, efficiency, and costs are most commendable. It is not likely that cost reductions could be transferred outside of China itself, except perhaps to third world countries. The building of nuclear reactors in third world countries, however, is not advisable unless the mean population IQ is at least 90 or above. If China violates that proviso, it will be guilty of considerable death and hardship in the future, within those unlucky countries which purchase its nuclear product, without also paying for the Chinese to operate all phases of the plant's operation and security.